Commercial marketing is all about rolling out products and getting them into widespread use.

In the case of prevention science the products take the form of evidence-based programs, and to bring them to market a new branch of implementation science is beginning to be spoken of as a source of the necessary expertise.

On the face of it, there are parallels between the commercial and scientific processes – marketing on the one side, implementation on the other. Certainly, in its search for reliable implementation methods, prevention science is looking toward the business sector with increasing expectancy.

At least four major barriers stand in the way of the widespread use of evidence-based programs: an over-dependency on a small number of principal providers, a narrowly defined target “market”, the complicated connection between program activities and subsequent behavioral change, and – partly as a result of that complexity – a need to adhere rigidly to an implementation plan without scope or guidance for making local adaptations.

People in marketing would argue, no doubt, that prevention science invests too much in research and development and neglects the ordinary needs of the consumers whose behavior it is trying to change.

And between those two extremes of the marketing process, they would say that too little attention is given to the preferences and limitations of the “purveyors” – those who implement the programs for the benefit of the consumers.

The parallels are not perfect, but present thinking is that prevention science needs to reorient itself more closely with marketing and to base its programs on business principles. Marketing research strategies should be acknowledged in the design of prevention programs. The people who implement a program and the consumers who are expected to use it need to be consulted about delivery, format and maintenance.

Prevention scientists tend to concentrate on the theory of change associated with an evidence-based program. Marketing research, it is argued, can fortify that process by helping to tailor the style, presentation and timing of delivery and making adjustments to suit different market segments.

A handful of evidence-based programs, for example Multisystemic Therapy, Communities that Care and Life Skills Training, have already begun to bring marketing skills into the orbit of prevention science.

But, for it to happen generally, prevention scientists’ preconceptions about the market and how their role within it is defined may need to alter. Yet another behavior change is called for, in other words, but this time it is wanted from the producers not the consumers of programs.

See: Rotherman-Borus M and Duan N (2003). “Next generation of prevention interventions” Journal of American Academy Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 42, pp 518-526.